Interview: Rebecca Belmore Wants Us to Listen to the Land

Rebecca Belmore: I think when I was taking the megaphone across Canada in 1992, which was 500 years since Columbus, is that what we were celebrating, or “de-celebrating” at the time.

Taking it to First Nations communities on reserves, rural as well as urban, was really interesting. When someone spoke through that megaphone, people would generally sit well in front, and face away from the object, which I thought was really quite beautiful. The art object itself was simply a tool, and people weren’t actually looking at it; they were looking out to the land, and the urban landscape.

In a sense, this current project is similar in that the objects will function as listening devices. It’s more about nature and the human body, and the art object is just the means to have a physical experience.